A Place to Call Home
by DarionMigraine
Summary: Lily Hyde is different, a freak. Over the years, she has stopped lamenting it and instead made it her identity, her shield. People only listen to strenght, and among normal folk a freak is powerful. So when she finds out of a whole magical world, she is scared of losing her advantage, but she dares hope for somwhere to belong. Join her as she tries to find her home, and her family.
1. Chapter 1: An orphan named Lily

**A Place to Call Home**

 **Book One: The Snake's Lair**

* * *

 **Chapter One: An orphan named Lily**

There was a knocking at the door.

"Lily, someone's here to see you", called the nervous voice of the Matron.

'Well, that's new.' She thought.

"Come inside." Lily answered with a sweet and innocent voice she had taken time perfecting.

The door opened and with the Matron came a stern looking woman. She had black hair tied up in a tight bun, elegant glasses and a dress that was a couple decades out of date. Despite her strange clothing, this woman imposed respect, and Lily decided not to act out of line, showing her most innocent smile.

When Minerva McGonagall entered the room, she was surprised. The Matron had warned her that the child was 'dangerous' and 'evil', that she was a witch, a demon worshipper. The Matron was half-right, of course, but Minerva would have to investigate if the child was merely another victim of fear due to accidental magic, or if she really was troubled. What she saw when she entered did however calm her nerves.

Lily was an innocent looking child, with a sweet smile and a cheerful looking face. She had wavy hair of the deepest black, and her eyes were of an extremely bright emerald green. Those eyes reminded her of another Lily she had also visited some time ago, but where those eyes had been full of awe and excitement, this Lily's eyes spoke of intelligence and cunning, with a hint of mischief.

"Hello, I'm Lily Hyde." She presented herself, offering her hand with the same smile.

"Hello dear, I'm Professor McGonagall." Minerva smiled at the child and shook the offered hand. She turned to the Matron and asked, "Would you mind if I had a word in private with young Lily?"

"Of-Of course not, go ahead. You can find me in my office if you need anything." The Matron quickly answered and turned away. Minerva raised an eyebrow at the haste, but didn't comment and instead took a seat across from Lily, who sat in her bed. She took a look around the room and noticed that while other girls would have dolls and other toys, Lily did not seem to have any, but rather had a lot of books. She would do well in Ravenclaw.

"Well, Ms. Hyde, I wanted to talk to you about school." She started.

"School, Professor?" Lily asked intrigued.

"Yes, dear. I'm Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and you have been given a scholarship to attend."

"Witchcraft and Wizardry?" She asked with a sneer. "Is this a joke?"

"No, dear." Minerva laughed. "Magic is real, and you're a witch, like me. Have you ever seen something happen that you couldn't explain when you were angry or afraid?" She asked.

"Yes, I'm aware of my… magic. I just didn't know there were others like me."

"Well, there are, dear, a lot of us." Minerva smiled. "But we hide ourselves from the Muggles, the non-magical humans, due to a lot of reasons. It's our most important law, called the Statute of Secrecy."

"I understand." She really didn't. The first thing she had done once she had discovered her powers and gained some control of them was put them to use. She had always been feared and hated for the strange happenings around her, no matter how many times she said she couldn't explain them. Now none of the children or even the adults dared bully her or treat her badly. Bad things happened that those who did. At first they considered her evil and possessed. They even brought a vicar to "guide her to the light". Once the vicar suffered a heart attack when trying to touch her they left her alone. If she was in charge of the witches, she would put others in their place. If she had learnt anything from living in an orphanage is that only the strong survived, if you wanted something you had to take it. Nobody went out of their way to make you happy. "Could you show me some magic, please? I want to see."

"Of course, dear." Lily watched as the Professor withdrew a wooden stick from her dress and flicked it towards her table, which became a live pig. Seconds later she flicked the stick again and the pig turned back into a table. Lily's eyes were wide open, she had some control over her magic, being able to move things around, change her appearance and, when she was very emotional, some other things, but nowhere near what she had seen. When the Professor snickered at her expression she quickly shut her mouth, which was hanging open.

"Professor… what's the stick for?" She asked.

"Oh, this is a wand. You need it to do magic. You'll be getting your own soon."

"Really, you can't do magic without a wand?" Lily asked, disappointed and confused.

"Well, you can, but it's extremely difficult. The only one I know who is able to do so is Headmaster Dumbledore, which is considered the most powerful wizard in Britain." She explained. "However, while not casting spells, there are some subjects of magic that do not require a wand, like brewing potions, caring for magical plants and creatures, carving runes, and so on."

"I understand." Lily said. "And what can you tell me about the school?"

"Oh, of course, I almost forgot." The Professor answered, looking inside of her robes and finally extracting a letter, bright green ink in old coarse paper, and a coat of arms. "Your letter of admission."

She read the letter, addressed to L. Hyde to her address, including even the number of her room. The letter admitted her to the school and provided her with a scholarship for the materials. There was annexed a list of materials needed for the course, amongst which were books, uniform, a wand, a telescope, and what she supposed were potions supplies such as a cauldron and scales.

"And where would I be able to buy these things?" She asked.

"In a place called Diagon Alley, hidden by magic in downtown London. It is the central shopping hub of Wizarding Britain. We shall leave today if you don't have any prior commitment."

Lily nodded. She would prefer to go on her own, but she could clearly see that the stern witch would not accept that, and she could always go back later.

"Ok then." She continued to read the letter. "It says here that I'm not allowed a broom. What's a broom for?"

"Flying brooms are a method of transport and are also an integral part of the Magical World's favourite sport, Quidditch. As such, we offer a flying class during the first year at Hogwarts, and thus we don't allow any first years, which are usually inexperienced flyers, to own a broom, as they could injure themselves using it unsupervised." The Professor answered sternly. Lily could see that she would be really strict with rules.

"I see." Lily kept reading. "And what's this? It says that students are allowed a pet, but it can only be an owl, a cat or a toad. Aren't other pets allowed?"

"I'm afraid not, Ms. Hyde. Those three are allowed since they are the three most common types of familiar, especially owls since they carry letters. Exceptions have been made before, but it is unusual."

"I see. Alright then" She said. 'I'll just have to smuggle Jormy in I guess.' If she had learnt anything from all the religious crap they had tried to saddle her with, it was that it was always better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

"Do you have any other doubt before we depart, Miss Hyde?"

"Not that I can think of. Can we go now, please?" She said with her best puppy eyes.

* * *

An hour later, Lily and the Professor were making her way through London's underground. She was pleased to be the one that had made the introduction to the child, usually it was decided at random between her, Pomona and Filius – no poor child should have Severus as his first impression of the Wizarding World – but she had a soft spot for orphans, never having had any children of her own. Minerva hadn't had much trouble convincing the Headmaster. 'Sure, sure, it will be fine.' The man was losing interest in the school as a whole and seemed solely interested in Potter nowadays.

After informing Lily that they would be going now to the Alley she had jumped with excitement. She had unearthed a box which held her savings, which surprisingly amounted to over six thousand pounds. It was the result of odd jobs such as pickpocketing with the help of her magic. She had been saving it for something good in which to spend it, an opportunity to get rid of the orphanage. Getting accepted into a secret magical society certainly counted. And so, she had accompanied the witch to the underground. Wizards had their own means of transport, but apparently you couldn't use magic outside school while underage, so she would have to learn how to get there by muggle means.

They finally arrived at the Alley, which was bustling with energy, being the first of August. Parents and children alike ran from one side to the other, happily chatting and discussing. Lily, meanwhile, was completely paralyzed with awe. She had entered a new, different world, full of wonderful things, where she could be herself without having to deal with the annoying swots that tried to push her down, a world where her gifts were revered, instead of looked at with fear and hatred. This was home.

They arrived at Gringotts, where Lily was surprised to see that there were other sentient razes beside humans. While the Professor set up the accounts of her scholarship and opened a brand new vault in her name, she changed her pounds to galleons, for which they took a heavy 5% interest. Apparently, there was no problem with her having money where the scholarship was concerned, as it was available to any child who didn't have either a good income or a good inheritance, and she didn't have either.

She bought only the standard, not bothering to get anything above the usual quality since she wasn't anywhere near rich, but she did spend half of her money on getting herself a good trunk. It would last her years and it would be a great place to guard her things. She was a very private person and was deeply possessive of the few things she owned. As such, she bought a trunk with three space-expanded compartments, all three of them locked by a different password, and the trunk blood-keyed to her, along with feather-weight and auto-shrinking enchantments. It did cost her more than half of her money, but it was a good investment, even if the Professor argued against it.

The rest of the materials were bought more quickly and were a lot cheaper. Potions equipment, Hogwarts robes, a telescope, and finally, a wand. The visit to the creepy old man called Ollivander didn't last long as the third wand she tried fit perfectly. Ebony and Phoenix feather, thirteen inches. It turned out it was a wand for independent people, which suited her just fine. They finally arrived at the bookshop, where McGonagall decided to leave Lily for a while as she had some matters to attend to.

The inside of the bookstore, however, was a chaos. Apparently some famous author was signing books today, and there were a lot of people waiting to get their books signed. Most of them were middle-aged ladies, which she didn't fail to notice.

She looked around for the books in her list, which were easy to find, but she was appalled when seven of them – seven! – were from the same guy, the one who was signing books today. From what the Professor had explained to her about the subjects, she could deduce they were for Defence Against the Dark Arts. However, a quick skim over the books revealed that they were mostly over-dramatized stories with some bits of actual information thrown between. She decided against buying them and instead bought a couple of Defence textbooks. With the savings she made from snubbing this Lockhart guy, she bought some books on topics that seemed interesting, such as a book on the different types of Magic, a book on runes – she was a sucker for Nordic mythology- and a couple others. She was making her way to the counter when she heard a commotion.

"Oh, can it be? Yes!" That Lockhart's guy voice was heard over everything else.

When she arrived at the entrance to check it out, she found Lockhart – who was more teeth than person – draping his arm over a child who was around her age. The kid had black messy hair, he was tall and had broad shoulders, but was decidedly uncomfortable about the situation. However what drew her attention was his eyes. They were the same emerald tone as her own, the exact same shade. She had never met anyone with the same eyes as her –it had been another reason for the kids in the orphanage to bully her, even the Matron found them unsettling - it had to mean something. She concentrated a bit to change her eyes to a pale green tone, as she didn't want anyone else to notice, lest she be dragged along. The thought made her laugh a little, apparently these people couldn't make magic without waving a stick and saying some words while she, who didn't even know was a witch, had been able to do magic with just a simple thought for years, although nothing came as easy to her as changing her appearance.

"- A full collection of my works!" Ended Lockhart. She had been distracted by her thoughts and had missed the kid's name, and she couldn't exactly approach him as he was being mobbed by the crowd. She didn't mind that much, the kid was sure to go to Hogwarts, so she would find out who he was sooner or later.

After paying for her books, she made her way to the door where a gaggle of redheads, along with the famous kid, were confronting a couple of blond wizards, a father and a son. Not wanting to stand around much she grabbed her trunk and was about to shrink it when she was hit by something, sending her tumbling to the floor. She looked around to find that the redhead father and the blond father had gotten into a fistfight and the blond guy had fallen over her.

"Hey, watch where you're going, Barbie!" She yelled at him, getting back on her feet and dusting off her clothes. The redhead group sniggered, with the green-eyed kid laughing the loudest.

The blonde snapped back to her looking enraged, and then looked at her with disgust.

"Of course someone like you wouldn't realize who it is she's insulting. Some day that fool Dumbledore will realize there's no place for filthy mudbloods in Hogwarts." The redhead group sucked her breath, apparently that had been an insult. The blonde looked at her and sneered. "Keep those books in good condition, it's not like your kind can get their hands on anything of value on our world."

"Yeah, whatever. Sod off if you know what's good for you." Lily said dismissively.

The redheaded children gaped at her, while the blond just smirked and left with his son. She flipped him off, just in time for Professor McGonagall to reappear.

"What's going on here, Ms. Hyde?" She asked with that strict voice of hers.

"Just a blonde ponce who should watch his back, Professor, nothing important."

"Language, Ms. Hyde." She reprimanded. Turning her head towards the remaining group she greeted. "Messrs. Weasley, Miss. Weasley, Mr. Potter." And she led Lily back towards the entrance of the Alley.

'Potter. Now I have a name.'

"Professor, who was the black-haired kid? He seemed famous. Potter, was it?" She asked innocently.

"Yes, Ms. Hyde. He will begin his second year at Hogwarts, and he is somewhat of a celebrity. The reason is… of a delicate nature. I'm sure you'll learn it soon enough." She answered. 'So it's something inconvenient that she doesn't want me to know. Probably a bad part of their society.'

"Oh, ok, Professor."

The Professor explained the train and the platform and, after assurance from Lily that she could handle herself, she left her to her own devices.

* * *

By the time Lily got back to the orphanage, she had pickpocketed some couple hundred pounds, and she wasted no time in finding Jormy to tell him everything.

Approaching the fence surrounding the orphanage, she allowed herself one of the few true smiles that ever grazed her face. Jormy would be excited to know about the magical world.

She had first met him a couple years ago, on the yearly trip to London that the orphanage organized. That year was a trip to the zoo. She wasn't really excited, or at least, not as much as the other kids. She didn't ever feel comfortable in the presence of so many people, much less happy families. It made her both angry and sad, even more so than the other orphans. However, she calmed down a bit when she reached the reptile pavilion. It was less overrun with people, as most would prefer a cuddly lion cub to a lizard. However, Lily liked reptiles better, specially snakes, as they made good conversation.

She had discovered that she could speak to snakes some years ago, and she didn't really found it strange. It just added to the pile of weird occurrences around her. She was grateful for the ability, as the snakes of the nearby forest were the only ones who actually wanted to talk to her. She had always gotten along better with them than the other children. They praised her magic instead of calling her a demon. It did have its downsides, of course. Once the Matron got hold of the rumours of her talking to snakes she had redoubled her efforts to "purge the demon out of her". But Lily was content with the trade. It had given her the best friend she could hope for.

She was making conversation with a rather interesting boa constrictor when a fat kid pushed her aside. She wasn't used to kids disrespecting her anymore, and responded in kind. The glass vanished and the boa bit the kid a couple times before making her scape. As the kid wailed like a pig on the slaughter Lily laughed along with the other snakes, except for one. A black mamba was coiled with a grumpy expression, muttering to himself. Lily approached him and asked why he was so grumpy.

"Oh, a speaker, huh? Anyways, human, I'm not grumpy. I'm angry at the other snakes. They're not only laughing at the pig, they're laughing at the boa. She will get caught and she will be killed since she bit the kid."

"That's horrible" Said Lily. "Why would they laugh about it?"

"They like it here." Continued the black mamba, his voice muffled through the glass pane. "They have food when they're hungry, water when they're thirsty, and they don't have to worry about getting eaten. Only the boa and I were captured, the rest were bred in captivity. They don't know what they're missing, their whole world is these cages. They don't understand that we would gladly die for a chance to hunt once again." He added with a depressed tone.

Lily furrowed her brow. She could sympathize with the snake. She knew what it was to be trapped in a place, subject to the orders of others.

"So you want to get out of here?" She said.

"More than anything." Answered the snake, resolute.

"Alright then. You're coming with me." Lily said while she closed her eyes.

"Wait, what?"

The glass suddenly vanished and Lily opened her eyes, smiling. She extended her hand towards the snake.

"Are you coming?"

She and Jormy had been inseparable after that. The snake had been insistent in staying with the young girl and help her in all he could as long as he was allowed to hunt around. Lily had left him in the woods around the orphanage, as he would be found inside the walls and killed. She had decided to name him Jormungandr, after the snake that surrounded the world in the Norse myth. The snake insisted it was too long to remember, but Lily was a fan of mythology and had already made his mind, so they settled on Jormy.

"Jormy!" She hissed towards the woods.

Not long after the snake appeared. A beautiful black mamba of over two meters of length. He was still young and had to grow up, but according to him he was already bigger than he was supposed to be. Lily thought that it was due to her magic; after all, most strange things happening around her were explained that way. Jormy slithered up her legs and coiled around her shoulders, surrounding her in a warm embrace that brought a smile to her face. She only felt truly safe with Jormy around.

"You won't believe it. A woman came today and she was a witch like me!" She said enthused.

"Really? That's wonderful Lily, I told you there were others." He said with an annoyed air.

"Yeah I know, you're always right" She laughed. "Anyways, she invited me to a school of magic! We're going to a magical castle to learn magic!" Lily said excited.

"Lily…"

"The lady said that you could only make magic with some stick, but I've done good enough so far, so maybe there's even cooler magic you can do with it? She did turn my table into a pig and back, I haven't been able to do anything like it…" She rambled.

"Lily."

"And listen, there's even other creatures! There's this whole bank run by goblins, which are this little green men with sharp teeth and they look like they've been sucking lemons since they were born, and I opened a vault and-"

"Lily!" He said, exasperated.

"What?"

"Listen, child, I don't want to ruin the day and I'm happy for you, but you should get all your hopes up so fast." He said, exasperated.

"What do you mean, Jormy?"

"Lily, you don't know anything about this world." He sighed. "Here, the humans treat you bad, but you can protect yourself because you have magic and they don't. What if they treat you bad there as well? You don't have the advantage anymore."

"But, why would they treat me badly?" She said, dejected. "I'm like them, right? I won't be the freak anymore."

"You just said that you can do magic without a stick and they can't. And even then, you know people don't need a real reason to hate other people. I'm not telling you not to go, I don't want to ruin it for you, I just want you to be careful." He said, concerned.

"I… I understand, Jormy. I'll need information on this world, to prepare better for it."

"That's it, as long as you're prepared it will be fine." The snake nodded. "Now, tell me all about your day."

Lily beamed.

She had not revealed to the professor that she could speak with snakes, as that was one of the main reasons the rest of the orphanage had called her a demon, and she didn't know if the prejudice was also present in the magical community. Jormy was of the opinion that she should learn everything she needed as quickly as possible and visit Diagon Alley as often as needed to fill in the gaps, to which she readily agreed. There was so much she didn't know yet, and without knowledge there was no power. And, even if at Hogwarts she did not have the advantage of magic over her peers, she still intended on being the leader. She would not be that weak girl who was bullied again. She bowed to no one.

* * *

A couple of days later found Lily reading quietly inside one of the trunk's compartments, one who she had dedicated as a habitat for her snake partner, as he didn't like to sleep outside. His habitat was in Africa, after all. Jormy was coiled up over a heating rock she had bought for him, the floor covered in leaves and some other rocks. He felt quite at ease here, and Lily liked to read in his compartment, having him for company. After all, Jormy was the only one who cared for her, and he was the only one she cared for.

She had skimmed over the school books, which didn't seem very interesting, as they were all about "how to do this" instead of "why does it work that way". She guessed that maybe that was because all the kids from wizard families already knew that, but she still wanted to know, so she picked up the books about Magical Theory first.

Turns out there were several types of magic, and spells were only one of them. They were controlled by wand movements and incantations, as well as some intent and visualization, which seemed to be common to most types of magic. What she had been doing up until now was called "wild magic", merely dependant on intent and visualization, and apparently only the most powerful of wizards had been able to do it after decades of practice, which make her feel really proud. Jormy just commented "Of course you're powerful, otherwise I wouldn't have made you my pet." He still considered her his pet, only there to do his bidding and care after him. His vanity knew no limits, but she was grateful for his company.

She was delighted to see that there were other types of magic that were completely different, such as Potions and Runes, where you didn't cast any spell but rather took part in a process that would only work for those with magic. Those seemed interesting, as they would depend more on knowledge than power, and thus would be more difficult and challenging.

Finally she found mention of something called 'Family Magics' which took her breath away. Most of the old families had bound some particular type of magic to their bloodline centuries ago, granting some special kind of ability to those of their blood, though not everyone had it. The magics had, however, died out over time, and currently the only user of family magic was of the Black Family, whose magic was something called 'metamorphmagus'. It seemed interesting, and she could do wild magic, so maybe she also had some family magic. She decided to search for a book on the topic when she got back to Diagon Alley.

The other thing that really drew her attention was Harry Potter, as she had found out he was named. She had read a book on modern history that she had picked up, and apparently Wizarding Britain had been in the middle of a civil war a mere decade ago. Some group of terrorist started killing muggleborns –and people who opposed them- due to some self-righteous belief that they were 'purer' and more worthy, and the boss-guy, someone who was apparently so badass that no one dare even mention his name -hell, they wouldn't even print it- finally decided to go after the Potters, who had been on the other side. Turns out mom and dad weren't at home, so boss-man killed the nanny and then shoot the killing curse at Harry. No one knows what happened but the guy vanished without a trace, supposedly dead, and Harry became the Boy-Who-Lived, and people applauded him as the one who ended the war. Lily just thought it was completely stupid, like a baby would have been able to defeat a Dark Lord. The guy probably had tried to do some kind of really fucked-up magic that required killing a baby and it had backfired spectacularly. Nothing to worship the kid about.

A few more trips to Diagon Alley had quelled Lily's information needs, on the last of them she had even ventured into Knockturn Alley to obtain some "non-recommended" reading material. A venomous snake draped over her shoulders was deterrent enough for the more shady characters of the alley.

She had bought several more books on magical theory, especially those on the subjects that did not require a wand, like runes and potions, and the equipment to accompany them. After all, the potion ingredients kit for first year was not nearly enough if she wanted to experiment, and runes weren't even in the curriculum. After the couple trips she had pickpocketed enough money to buy herself a brand new broom, a Nimbus 2000. She didn't even know if she would like flying, but it seemed pretty useful and she could spend some money in a whim every once in a while. Flying certainly qualified.

Her trip to Knockturn Alley had paid the most dividends so far. A little bookstore ran by the ugliest old woman she had ever seen, later identified as an actual hag, had called her attention. It had books on a wide variety of topics that she had learnt were banned by the ministry or simply had bad reputation. This was the reason she had gone into Knockturn on the first place, as she would not let such petty things as censure get in the way of her becoming stronger. It's not like she had learnt any respect for authority figures in the orphanage.

In the small, damp bookshop, she had found several things of interest, such as a magical theory book on the so called "Dark Arts", and another book on something called the Mind Arts, which sounded pretty interesting. But the haul of the day had been a book on family magics, she had been wanting to learn about them since she first read the name. With a bit of luck, she would have one of these magical abilities, which would be proof of her heritage, a way to find what happened to her family and how had she ended up in the orphanage. She had never known her parents, not even her name or birthday. She had been found on the door of the orphanage with nothing on her to identify her but a single red lily flower. And so they had named her Lily, her surname being Hyde after the founder of the orphanage and her birthday being the day they found her, August 4.

Accompanying all these magic books, she had bought some other reading on important aspects of the magical world, such as its government, important people and families, and customs. She had quickly learnt of the prejudice against muggleborns and the favouritism for old families, which got her very depressed for a couple of days. Jormy was right, humans would always find a way to be horrible to each other for no reason, no matter if they were magical or not. To have the chance of a place where she could belong, where she would not be a freak, a second class citizen, taken away from her had devastated Lily, but it was better for it to be now than when she arrived at Hogwarts. She still wanted to attend the school, even if her life would likely be worse than the orphanage, she couldn't pass the opportunity of learning to control her powers better.

Family Magics is the term used to describe several abilities, magical in nature, that are congenital, that is, the person is born with them. They cannot be learnt.

They started in the 9th century, where important families did rituals to bind certain abilities to their blood. Most of these rituals and blood magic have been lost, and there hasn't been a new family magic recorded in Britain since the 13th century.

Each ability is unique to a family, and can only be manifested by members of that family or descendants of up to three generations. After three generations without new blood from such family, the children will not be able to manifest the family magics.

As they are unique to a single family, possession of that family's ability is magical proof of being part of the family, regardless of legal procedure.

Even though they are characteristic of a family, that does not mean that every member of the family has it, they merely have the potential to have it. Nowadays, there are very few wizards and witches with family magics, with only two recorded ones in the 20th century up to the publishing of this book.

They must not be mistaken with "magical talents", that is, a predisposition of a family for a certain kind of magic, like the Blacks being talented in Dark Magic, or the Potters producing more Animagi than any other family.

The most prominent family magics are…

Lily paused reading for a moment. This was it. If she had any of these abilities that may be a way to find out about her family, finally know why they had abandoned her in an orphanage like and old sock. The thought brought fury to the forefront of her mind, but she calmed herself. Now, to find out if she had any ability.

As she passed the pages her excitement dimmed. There were so many, and most of them were thought extinct. She had a good feeling about her ability of talking to snakes, as she had read in Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts that Parseltongue, as it was named, was an ability which very few possessed and was linked to a wizard called Salazar Slytherin, which apparently was a founder of Hogwarts. It also said that the skill was extremely rare, so she had a good feeling that maybe it was family magic.

Getting frustrated she searched the index for Parseltongue or Slytherin, and beamed when she found the entry. As suspected, it was the ability of the Slytherin family. However, it was of no use to her. The Slytherin family had been extinct for four centuries.

'Wait a minute, wasn't that You-Know-Who guy supposed to be his descendant?' She thought. She had read it in the history book, that due to his Parseltongue ability he had claimed descent from Slytherin.

A quick look to the inner cover of the family magics book solved it, it had been published in '54, before the rise of the Dark Lord. And no one knew where the man had come from, so she didn't have a genealogy tree to be able to find herself.

A quick thought crossed her mind in that moment. The Slytherin family was supposed extinct and then this guy shows up. He was the first to show the Parseltongue ability in centuries, an ability she also has. The guy died just months after she was born, and she was left in an orphanage, like an orphan would. She swallowed hard. It wasn't certain, but it didn't look good at all. Chances were, she was the daughter of the Dark Lord. If people found out she would be killed.

'All right then, no talking to snakes in public' Lily thought, trying not to hyperventilate.

Disturbed with the thought she went back to the book on family magics.

* * *

The rest of August had gone by so quickly that it made Lily worried. She was excited to go to Hogwarts, but she also felt like she hadn't had enough time to learn all she could. McGonagall had warned her that she wasn't allowed to do magic outside of school and it was monitored, but she figured it only applied to wand magic, since nobody had ever come any time she had used it before learning of the magical world. She had managed to perform most of the spells in her Charms textbook without using her wand. Transfiguration, on the other hand, was not that easy. She had had serious trouble until she had managed her first success as she had not done anything like it before. However, Lily had enjoyed it immensely, as she completely adored the idea of changing things into other things; it was the best use she could think for magic, and she had got to mastering all the first level transfiguration with fervour.

Of course, it hadn't taken her much time. Even though she had had trouble with it at first, it had fallen into place as soon as she had realized that she had changed the form of things before, she had the ability to change her own body! Once she had thought about her transfiguration spells the same way she thought at changing her own body, it had all been quite easy. This had revived interest in that ability of hers, and she had finally found it in the family magics book.

She was a Metamorphmagus. Apparently, Metamorphmagi were one of the few family magics that were still somewhat prominent, they originated from the Black Family, one of the most powerful and important families of Britain. She had been delighted to learn that not only could she change the colour of her eyes and hair, but that she could also alter her facial structure and the rest of her body as well. She had practiced it along with her Transfiguration spells and had taken to it quite fast, though there were still some things here and there that she couldn't get to work properly just yet. She had yet to manage altering her height or weight, but she had all the time in the world.

The bad news, however, was that her being a Metamorphmagus further proved her disturbing theory that she was a daughter of the Dark Lord, as it proved her part of the Black Family, and Bellatrix Lestrange neé Black had been the right hand of the Dark Lord. Lily tried not to think about it at all as it brought conflicting feelings to her mind. On one hand, she was very happy to know that, if they were indeed her parents, they hadn't abandoned her. One was dead and the other in prison, and nobody who knew who she was would have wanted to take care of her, most of the Dark Lord's followers had denied ever serving him and those who didn't were all in Azkaban. But that didn't explain how she had ended up in a muggle orphanage. The only case she could think of for a wizarding child being raised by muggles that she could think of were, either being born to muggles or muggleborns with no other family – which she knew was not the case due to her family magics – or being thought a squib and being abandoned in the magical world. And if the Dark Lord had a squib child he would probably have killed it. It didn't make sense.

On the other hand, she was scared. Yes, she knew who her parents probably were and her mother was even alive, if incarcerated for life. But did she really want to be their child? These people were monsters if even one tenth of what the books said was real. Sure, she had always believed in the reign of the stronger –how could she not, growing up in an orphanage- but she didn't see herself killing whole families of innocent people for fun. Jormy had been a great help in calming her and getting her back to sleep each time she had nightmares, and eventually she got over it, though she still held to the possibility that she was not the daughter of these two.

Another thing that had helped her calm down was the book on the Mind Arts that she had bought on Knockturn. The first part of the book talked about Occlumency, the art of controlling one's own mind to its fullest potential. She had read ahead and it had all sort of uses, from memory recall to increased reactions, and it seemed to be one of the most useful things one could learn. What had called her attention, however, was coincidentally the first part of mastering Occlumency: Learning to control one's emotions. In order to use the other benefits one had to focus their whole mind into the task at hand, and this required it to be undistracted by random thoughts and emotions, or "clearing the mind", as it was called in the book. This first task would, according to the book, take her over 6 months, but it came incredibly easy to her and after only three weeks of practice she was close to mastering it. She attributed this natural talent to her practice ignoring the taunts and insults of the other kids and putting her innocent girl mask on.

By the time September 1 came around, Lily felt that she was a completely different person that she had been at the beginning of the summer. She still insisted she wasn't ready enough – which made Jormy constantly annoyed- but she was miles ahead of where she thought she would be. As the alarm clock woke her up from her slumber she grinned widely. Today she started a new life.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

The story is not going to be completely AU (most things will work as canon or most of the fandom), but several characters will be OOC (as compared to canon) due to several key events happening differently, such as Halloween 1981, its aftermath, and so on.

This is not going to be a Romance focused story, though there _will_ be pairings later on, but they will not be the central point of the plot.

The story is going to follow canon on some things, but it will be completely different in others, so don't expect a canon rehash, but don't expect complete AU either. This is suposed to be the canon universe with some key differences early on. This will cause a domino effect and the furter along in the story, the more different it will become with respect to canon.

As for the main aspect of the story, it will be about Lily trying to find a place for herself - which will obviously be difficult due to insecurities resulting of living in the orphanage - and finding out about her family.

Anyways, you'll see in the following chapters what I mean.

Read & Review! This is one of my first works so I appreciate criticism.


	2. Chapter 2: Testing the Waters

**A Place to Call Home**

 **Book One: The Snake's Lair**

* * *

 **Chapter Two: Testing the Waters**

King's Cross Station was full of activity. People going to work, parents making sure their children didn't get lost, and a suspicious amount of people with trunks that somehow didn't end up at any of the platforms. But then again, people did have better things to do than worry about what the rest did, and in the case they were truly inquisitive, the muggle-repelling ward would do the rest. And so, one Lily Hyde passed unnoticed through the barrier separating platforms nine and ten. Her first view of the Hogwarts Express amazed her. She had seen trains before, but never a locomotive, much less a bright red one. Clearly the wizards had never heard about contamination.

A commotion caught her attention and she saw a big group getting swarmed by the rest of the people in the platform. There was a huge family of redheads, the ones she had seen on Flourish & Blott's, and next to them a small family of a child and his two parents, which were the one who actually had the attention of the people. A quick look revealed the kid to be Harry Potter. His father looked exactly like him, except for the green eyes. Those were unmistakable, even from a distance. A quick look to the redheaded woman next to them solved the riddle of who he had gotten them from. Potter's mother had the same bright green eyes as Harry, and strangely enough, herself. That reminded her of tuning down her eye colour to a pale green, those eyes had to have a special significance, they were just different. They had oftentimes unnerved the adults of the orphanage, and she was sure it was one of the reasons none of her interviews with prospective foster parents had paid off. 'As if there was a whole lot of them in the first place' she snorted as she observed the family for a while.

The first thing that one could tell about the Potters is that they looked happy. They were smiling and shaking hands all around. The boy was laughing with one of the redheaded kids, and his father was excitedly telling something to the older redhead wizard. As the train gave out the warning whistle reminding everyone that it parted in ten minutes, the kids said their goodbyes to their parents. Potter's mother wrapped his son in a hug, while his father put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with undisguised pride. The scene brought long buried feelings back to the surface of Lily's mind. Memories of talking to prospective parents, a wide hopeful smile on her face, only to later see another kid getting hugged, another one going to a loving family while she stood in that place, alone, unwanted. She clamped down her Occlumency on those feelings of sadness and worthlessness like a snake on a mouse, dragging them into their subconscious. However, as the sadness receded, anger and hatred flooded her mind. Anger at the parents that would not love her. Hate at the children of the orphanage that kept reminding her that she never would have someone hold her. Self-loathing at feeling weak once again when she had long convinced herself that she had no need for such things. She was not far along enough on her Occlumency yet to be able to suppress them completely.

She dragged herself away from the Potters lest someone noticed the look of pure loathing on her face. Making her way across the train, she quickly found an empty compartment and set her trunk on the overhead compartment after unshrinking it. Jormy was still in his own room inside of the trunk, she had to keep him a secret lest they made her get rid of him, but his presence would be a powerful deterrent if someone messed with her. Jormy didn't object much, he had enough room in his habitat, and he didn't like people besides Lily anyway. Picking out Hogwarts: A History out of her school bag she set to reading.

Soon enough, the train started to pick up speed and set out for Hogwarts. It was a four hour ride according to Hogwarts: A History, and she was quite nervous. What would she do if someone entered the compartment? She wasn't used to talking to people except for ordering them around. The only friend she had was Jormy, and he was a snake, so that didn't really count as experience. Her worries were quickly squashed when the door opened, and a couple of girls stood on the entryway.

"Hi, can we sit here?" Said one of them, who she recognized as the girl from the red headed family. Her friend had wispy blonde hair, extremely bright blue eyes and an air of aloofness around her.

"Sure." She said, and they sat. She offered them her hand. "I'm Lily Hyde."

"Ginny Weasley." Said the redheaded one.

"Luna Lovegood." Said her friend.

"Oh, I remember now, you're the one from the bookstore!" Started Ginny. "It was awesome how you dealt with that ponce Malfoy, I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. Oh and sorry about that, really, our families have some bad blood between them."

Lily merely nodded, while Luna took out a magazine called The Quibbler and starter reading it upside-down, to which she made no comment.

"You two are first years too, then?" She asked.

"Yeah, I'm so excited to go to Hogwarts. I've got six brothers who have all gone there, and they've told me lots of stories about it."

'A seventh child? According to one of my books, the number seven is the most powerful magic number, she must be powerful due to that. It might be wise to get acquainted with her.'

"And the Boy-Who-Lived is there too! He's been at my house a couple times, but he's always hanging out with my brother Ron, so I've never really talked to him. Don't you think he's so dreamy? I hope I'm in Gryffindor with him." She continued, almost squealing.

'Then again, maybe she's not that useful'

"Really? You know the Boy-Who-Lived? What's he like?"

"Well, he's got wild black hair, and a mischievous smirk that makes you melt, and he's tall, and he's got these beautiful green eyes that…" She went on for like a minute before she finally finished.

"Yeah, but what's he like, you know? Besides his looks, I mean."

"Well, he's brave, and chivalrous, and noble, and-"

"Kind of a dick." Interrupted Luna from behind her magazine.

"Luna! Language! And Harry is a perfect gentleman."

"You're the one always complaining that he and Ron won't let you play Quidditch because you're a girl." She pointed out.

Ginny merely pouted and shut up.

"It's not his fault, not completely. He grew up hearing that he was the second coming of Merlin, so naturally he has developed an infestation of Withering Humdingers the likes of which haven't been seen since Leopold the Bold." Luna nodded to herself. Lily was surprised with this girl, she was equally parts insightful and nonsensical. She would make an interesting acquaintance.

"And what about the Potters, do you know them? I saw them in the platform." Lily asked.

"Oh, Lady Potter is such a nice Lady, always proper but very warm and caring. She always asks about me when she comes around." Ginny beamed. "And Lord Potter is so funny, he's always doing pranks, Fred and George, my brothers, love him."

"I agree with Ginny." Luna said. "Lord Potter is one of our most important political figures and yet he behaves like a twelve year old child, while Lady Potter is very self-righteous and loves the adoration of those she considers 'the right kind'" Luna nodded fervently, either not noticing or not minding the looks Ginny was giving her. She was liking this girl more by the minute. "At least in public, anyways. Lady Potter has a mask thicker than a gromblethorn's horn. The other two are too dumb to pretend."

"I see." Lily said between chuckles. She was enjoying Luna's bashing of the Potters quite a lot, but Ginny seemed ready to bust a vein. "Anyways, what do you think about Hogwarts? What subjects are you looking forward the most?"

"Oh, I want to reach third year fast to get Care of Magical Creatures, it's one of the electives. I love animals." Luna said happily. "But meanwhile I'll settle for Astronomy. I love the stars."

Lily smiled, she liked the stars too, they were quite intertwined with mythology, and that was always a point in favour.

"What about you, Ginny?" She asked, looking at the little redhead, who perked up at the attention.

"Uh, I was looking forward to Charms since Lady Potter teaches it, but that was before I knew Lockhart was teaching DADA. He's so handsome." She swooned.

"Lady Potter teaches Charms?" She asked.

"Yes, she's assistant professor, she teaches fourth years and below, while Professor Flitwick teaches the upper years." Luna explained. "She's actually quite talented at Charms, I hear she got her Mastery under Professor Flitwick." Lily nodded. Her current dislike of the Potters didn't mean that they were not powerful or knowledgeable.

"Anyways, Ginny, if you're looking forward to doing something in DADA besides ogling Lockhart you're going to be disappointed. I heard that all DADA teachers have been terrible for decades, something about a curse?" She said.

"Nonsense," interceded Ginny, "I'm sure Lockhart is a great teacher, otherwise Dumbledore wouldn't have picked him."

"Maybe he was the only one who applied for the post? It is a dangerous job, after all." Said Luna with a dreamy look on her face that made Lily chuckle, she was probably picturing Lockhart dying in several different ways.

"Sorry to break it to you, Ginny, but the man is a fraud. Just read his books, not only are they badly written novels with a few tips here and there, but I found four contradictions in just the ten minutes I spent skimming over them at the bookstore. It's obvious that he either made it up or took the credit from other people." Lily said with finality.

"You're just jealous." Ginny huffed.

"Yeah, I'm completely jealous of a guy whose greatest achievement is his smile. I'll have to give him credit where it's due, though. The man is a great publicist, he's managed to convince most housewives that he's some hotshot. And he did manage to get the near three hundred children that go to Hogwarts to buy his complete collection. He's probably made much more money just by taking the job than his actual wages. Not that I spent a single knut on his books, but I'm probably one of very few" She shrugged, while Luna just chuckled and Ginny looked horrified.

"You didn't buy the books?!" She shrieked, horrified.

"I'm an orphan. I value money quite a bit, and I'm not about to spend it on useless crap. I bought a couple of defence texts for less than even one of Lockhart's books costs, and each of them was more informative than all of those seven books together." She shrugged.

"Oh, I didn't notice you were muggleborn." Said Luna. "You seem to know quite a bit about the Wizarding World."

"I like to be prepared. What makes you think I'm muggleborn, though?"

"There are no orphanages in the magical world. All orphans are either given to wizarding relatives or in case there is none, to a suitable wizarding family." Luna explained.

"Oh, I didn't know that." Lily answered. She guessed that law didn't apply to her. "But yes, I grew up in a muggle orphanage."

"For the record, I didn't buy Lockhart's books either." Luna said happily.

"But Luna, why would you do that?" Ginny pleaded.

"I didn't have place for them in my trunk, Daddy gave me a huge tome on crumple-horned snorkacks for my birthday." She explained.

"Anyways, which House do you think you will go to?" Lily asked.

"Ravenclaw for me." Said Luna with determination.

"All Weasleys have gone to Gryffindor for over five generations." Ginny said proudly.

"That makes no sense." Lily interjected. "You're telling me that, for five generations, all Weasley children shared exactly the same traits and had the same personality? Your family must be pretty boring if that's true, no offense. On the other hand, you guys must get along incredibly well." She nodded to herself.

"You don't understand, it's tradition. You go where your family goes, to honour them." Ginny said.

"No offense, but that's pretty stupid." She deadpanned, and Luna snickered. "Well, I don't have that problem as I never knew my parents , but it doesn't matter, I'm pretty sure I'm going to Slytherin."

"Slytherin?! But why?! You're a muggleborn, and the slimy snakes hate muggleborns, they're a bunch of Death Eaters in training." Ginny said with incredulity.

"There's so much wrong with that statement that I don't even know where to begin." Lily said shaking her head.

"I think you'd do great in Slytherin Lily." Luna said.

"Thank you, Luna." Lily answered. "And Ginny. I'm not going to let anyone tell me what I can or cannot do, not you, not the 'slimy snakes' as you put it, which by the way makes no sense at all, since snakes are desert creatures. Toads are slimy, snakes are dry outside of aquatic species…" She rambled until she saw Luna trying to hold down her laugh. "...But I digress , and certainly not the Ministry either, they seem like a bunch of morons." She said, resuming her ranting. "And I refuse to believe that an eleven year old can be a 'Death Eater in training' as you put it."

"Suit yourself, but don't cry later." Ginny said with an uppity voice.

"I don't plan to. If the Slytherins mess with me, they'll learn soon enough not to do it. I'm not afraid of them."

"Just be careful." Chided in Luna, to which Lily smiled.

* * *

The rest of the journey went much the same way. Lily still didn't figure out if Luna was extremely passive-aggressive or if she truly didn't realize how her words sounded to others, but she loved it anyway. Ginny on the other hand got more irritable by the moment, and Lily enjoyed pushing her buttons. Sometime during the journey Barbie Jr. made an appearance, and Lily enjoyed very much to close the door in his face. Who barged into a compartment unannounced anyways, he didn't have much manners for a pureblood heir.

The first years followed a huge man named Hagrid in boats through the lake. Her first sight of the castle left her speechless; it truly was an impressive building. It looked right out of the pages of a fantasy book, and she was sure that some of the highest towers were sustained purely by magic.

Soon enough it was time to be sorted, and as she entered she took the view around her. The Great Hall was magnificent. It was quite big, divided in one table per House, plus one of the staff. She was impressed by the enchantment in the ceiling, which showed the night sky. A sweep of the room showed her that Potter was a Gryffindor, as she expected, but surprisingly Barbie Jr. was a Slytherin, which she thought quite strange as he was incredibly obnoxious. Probably another "all my family went there" thing, like the Weasleys. She saw Dumbledore at the Head Table, but didn't even look at him because the Mind Arts book had warned her that most powerful wizards knew some Legilimency, which sounded suspiciously like mind-reading, and apparently they could do that just with mere eye contact. She was not going to look the bastard in the eye until she had mastered Occlumency; no one was going to look around in her head, it was the greatest invasion of privacy she could imagine.

After listening to the hat song, the Sorting started. She made note of her future housemates, but the only ones who caught her attention were the girls: Flora and Hestia Carrow, twins, and Astoria Greengrass, who was hugged by a second-year student in her house, probably a sister or a cousin. Finally, her name was called.

"Hyde, Lily." Called Professor McGonagall.

She made her way towards the stool, lifted the Sorting Hat and sat down. She didn't even have time to put the Hat on her head before the thing shouted "SLYTHERIN!" for all the Great Hall to hear. Shrugging, she put the Hat down on the stool and walked happily towards her House Table, whose inhabitants were looking at her with either shock or disgust. She smirked and sat down in front of Astoria as the Sorting was resumed.

"Hi, I'm Lily." She offered her hand.

"Astoria." She took her hand with a look of suspicion.

After introducing herself to the Carrow Twins, she was asked the question of the million pounds.

"So," started Astoria. "Hyde is not a Wizarding name. Are you a halfblood then?"

"You know, I don't really know. Lily Hyde is not my birth name. You see, I grew up in a Muggle orphanage, which from what I now know, means that either I'm muggleborn or I'm a pureblood that was mistaken for a squib. Not that I care much either way." Lily said confidently, ignoring the looks of horror and disgust spreading around the table.

Lily smirked at the sight, they probably didn't know if they should hate her for being a muggleborn, a near-squib, or for not caring about blood. Not even a minute and she had already managed to infuriate the whole House. This was going to be fun.

"I… see." Said Astoria, who quickly turned around to chat with her other year mates.

The Sorting ended –Ginny went to Gryffindor and Luna to Ravenclaw, as expected – and, after the Headmaster presented Lockhart as the DADA Professor, the feast started. Lily ate in silence and tried to identify who wielded power in the House of the Snake. She quickly noticed someone named Flint, who was the Quidditch Captain. Barbie Jr. seemed to have a posse amongst the lower years. However, that these two were the most noticeable ones meant that they held no real power, they were puppets for someone who moved in the shadows, a true Slytherin. She'd have to investigate a while longer.

Dinner ended and Lily was quite satisfied, the food was delicious compared to what she normally had in the orphanage. She followed the first years towards the dungeons, where the entrance to the Common Room was. They were told the password, 'Salazar', and entered the room.

"All right firsties, listen up." Barked the fifth year Prefect, whose name Lily hadn't bothered finding out. "Slytherin House has several rules, but the most important is this one: Slytherins stand together. The other three houses detest us, especially Gryffindor, so under no circumstances are you to argue or fight between each other outside the Common Room. If you have any problem," He said, looking quite obviously at Lily, "you solve it here. Outside we've got a common enemy. Now, our Head of House, Professor Snape has some words."

A shadow that had been standing by the corner stepped into the light. He had greasy, limp black hair, a big crooked nose and dressed all in black. However his expression and his eyes betrayed that this was not a man to cross.

"Very good, Rosier. I'm Professor Severus Snape, Potion Master and Head of Slytherin. You are now part of the Noble House of Slytherin, the most prestigious of the four. We accept nothing but excellence in all areas, and thus, I expect you all to achieve suitable grades in all your subjects. We are to represent the best of wizarding society, so I also expect you to behave with decorum and politeness on all situations. Lastly, we are the House of Cunning. If you break any of these rules, don't get caught. That is the number one rule. If any of you is found sullying the image of Slytherin House, you will be punished most severely. Due to the prejudice of the other Houses against us, I will compensate by favouring you and not taking points from you, but if you get caught, I will assign detentions, and trust me, you won't like them. I expect you all to abide by these rules and, like Mr. Rosier said before, to stand united as one outside of these doors. Do not disappoint me." He finished, walking out of the Common Room.

'So, he just gave them a free pass to beat the crap out of me, as long as they keep it outside of prying eyes. Nice guy, I should buy him a gift for Christmas.'

"Very well, now the boys' dormitories are on the right, the girls on the left. Search for your room and make yourselves comfortable. Tomorrow, be here at seven sharp, we shall show you the way to the Great Hall."

Lily was delighted to find she had a room for herself. She had shared rooms before on the orphanage and it had not ended well for her roomie, she rather valued her privacy. She would not let herself think of how safe she felt with a stranger in her room. After warding and cursing the entrance with a few spells she had found in the book on the Dark Arts she had gotten from Knockturn –it took her more than a few tries since it was the first time she used her new wand, but she managed it- she made her way to her trunk which was already on the room, and went to visit Jormy, who was glad to know that he could roam around her room. After telling everything that had happened to Jormy, she fell asleep exhausted.

* * *

Lily woke up feeling refreshed; she hadn't had such a good night's rest in a long time. Having a nice dinner, a nice bed, and an ambient saturated with magic made for a great sleep.

Coming out of her room to have a shower she smirked, noticing that the wards on her door had triggered three different times. Once ready, she picked up her book bag and made her way to the Common Room. Ignoring the glares of her housemates she waited for the rest of the first years to come, and then was led to the Great Hall. The rest of the House gave her wide berth, for which she was grateful as it allowed her to eat in peace, planning her next moves. She was excited for classes, she had already learnt most of the first year curriculum but there were a few things that she had not been able to practice, such as potions and astronomy. And then there was the library, which according to Hogwarts: A History was a treasure trove.

The morning went by without a hitch, she had Charms and Herbology, sitting with Luna and gaining some points in the first and getting extremely bored in the second –seriously, ok, the plants were magical. But what was magical about potting them? Any muggle could do it – and finally, after lunch, she had DADA with the Gryffindors. As she entered the classroom she had to stifle a laugh, Ginny was glaring at her almost as much as some of the Slytherins.

"Meet your new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor…. Me! Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award." The teacher started.

Lily could already see that the class was going to be a joke, not that she had expected anything else. Not only was the classroom filled with portraits and photographs of Lockhart, but the man was already prancing around like a drunken peacock, not even a minute into the lecture. All the Gryffindor girls were swooning at the idiot, and surprisingly, Astoria Greengrass did so too. The Carrow twins on the other hand seemed to have a head on their shoulders.

"Well, children, you're very fortunate of starting your education on defence with such a talented wizard, but first, we must check what you already know. For that, I have prepared these tests. You have thirty minutes to complete them!" He proceeded to hand out the tests and made his way back to his desk. "Start!"

Ginny smirked at Lily and started to furiously write her answers. Lily rolled her eyes and took a look at the test. She had to hold back her urges to break Lockhart's teeth. All the questions were about his favourite colour and such other nonsense. The man was playing with the education of children, especially with such an important subject. She wondered how long it would take for an OWL or NEWT student to kill the ponce.

She decided to have some fun and set to answering the questions. The bell rang and Lockhart collected the tests. A quick switching charm and Lily made sure that her sheet was on top of the pile. She thought she was going to find the use of a wand cumbersome, but her magic responded more smoothly to her when using the focus, she was starting to like it.

"Allright students, let's check the answers together. I'll use the first test, which is from… Ms. Ginny Weasley." Ginny beamed at the attention and Lockhart proceeded to read.

"Let's see, first question. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour? And Ms. Weasley answered: Puke Green. Why, no, Ms. Weasley, it is actually lilac, those of you who read Break with a Banshee should have gotten it right! No matter, no matter, I'm sure you'll have some others correct." Ginny was looking very confused, and Lily had to make use of her Occlumency to keep her face straight.

"What is Gilderoy's Lockhart secret ambition? To share love and compassion," Lockhart smiled, "by kissing a dementor." His face fell. The class started to snicker while Ginny looked pale. "Well, dementors are not very nice and you should never kiss one, Ms. Weasley, but don't worry, we'll learn that in class."

"What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?" He asked. "Ty.. Tying his shoes." He read incredulously. His face took a delightful shade of Puke Green, which made the laughter set free.

"Yes, yes, very funny. I'm sure it was just a mistake on Ms. Weasley's part, don't worry about it. Let's continue, shall we?"

Lily didn't want the fun to stop so she used a mild confundus charm on Lockhart to keep reading answers.

"In his book Break with a Banshee, how did Gilderoy Lockhart bravely banish the Bandon Banshee?," was answered with "By crying so hard she took pity and left."

"Which is Gilderoy Lockhart's best side for photographs? The one covered with the most clothes, especially in total darkness."

"When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday and what would his ideal gift be? Who cares, and shoelaces."

By the time the test finished Ginny was crying, the rest of the class was rolling in laughter, and when the confundus finally wore off, Lockhart was livid.

"Ms. Weasley, twenty points from Gryffindor and a detention, for your cheek. Now let's start the lesson." He finally said, trying to calm the class down. He walked towards a covered cage which started to rattle. "Now, here are some of the most dangerous creatures that you'll ever find, I warn you not to scream, the might startle them…" Swiping the cloth over the cage in a dramatic way, Cornish Pixies were revealed, which once again set the classroom in laughter.

"Oh, you laugh now. Let's see how you do against them!" And he set them free.

Five minutes later, Lockhart had lost his wand and taken refuge behind his desk, half of the students had fled, Ginny was hanging off the ceiling, and Lily was giving the pixies pages ripped off of Ginny's book for them to make paper balls to throw at the students. After the Slytherins managed to contain the pixies again, Lockhart looked harshly at Lily.

"Miss…"

"Hyde, Professor." She answered with an innocent tone.

"Ms. Hyde, mind explaining why you were destroying one of my books and helping the pixies?"

"Well you see, Professor, I'm muggle-raised, so I don't know any magic yet, and the pixies were really scary, so I just tried to follow their lead to avoid any trouble since I'm not able to defend myself yet. You did say they were very dangerous, so I didn't want to risk it. I'm sorry I wasn't braver, Professor, after all, I'm not a Gryffindor" She said with her perfect innocent smile.

"Well, of course, Ms. Hyde. That… was a very appropriate reaction. Ten points to Slytherin for knowing your limits."

As she left the classroom the Carrow Twins approached her.

"That was brilliant." One of them said, she had yet to learn how to distinguish them.

"Yeah, what did Weasley do to you?" The other one added.

"I met her in the train and she has been glaring at me ever since." Lily shrugged.

"You just made her idol hate her and give her detention while ingratiating yourself with him. You humiliated both Weasley and Lockhart and destroyed his book, which coincidentally was Weasley's, and got praised in the process." Started twin number one.

"Just, because she glared at you a couple times." The other one continued.

"Remind me not to mess with you." The first one finished.

"I never said I was a good person." Lily shrugged. "Besides, you didn't have to hear her sing the praises of Lockhart, Dumbles and the Potters. She took a bloody hour until she got the message."

The Carrows merely smirked and said their goodbyes, making her way towards the dormitories. Lily made liberal use of the notice-me-not charm, another one of her "Essential spells to know if you're a Slytherin" - a list she had compiled over the summer with the most useful spells on all her books- and made her way to the library, morphing her appearance just in case. After all, if she got hexed someone was liable to have all the bones in their body broken. 'Which reminds me, I have to look up the bone-breaking curse.'

* * *

The first week had gone by without any problems, she kept sabotaging Lockhart, though she kept it subtler than the last one. The classes were fine, but she wasn't learning anything new in most of them. Potions was a favourite of hers, as the Professor always gave revised instructions, and she was very interested in the reason for the changes. She liked to try and figure it out by herself. However, as expected, having the top place on her classes did not sit well with her housemates. While the girls in her year had left her alone –the Carrows knew better, and Astoria seemed to be a meek kid – the older kids tried to catch her in the corridors, and they were getting restless after a week of being eluded. There were two main groups, the second years led by Barbie Jr. and the sixth years led by Warrington, one of the Chasers of the Quidditch team. The fifth and seventh years had more pressing matters to attend to with their exams around, especially after three of them got sent to the infirmary due to severe burns on their first night, the cause of which they didn't care to share, as most wouldn't admit that a first year muggleborn's wards had fend them off.

Jormy was disappointed with her for avoiding her would-be-bullies instead of beating the shit out of them, but he conceded that maybe it was too soon to establish dominance. Lily, however, felt that any confrontation was a bad idea before she had learnt enough battle spells, such as the bone-shattering curse, ossfringo, that she had read up on her first day in the library. However, in order to avoid trouble, the first thing that she needed was to know the terrain, and so she spent quite some time exploring the castle and reading up on the library anything she could find on passageways and secret rooms.

This is how Lily found her favourite piece of Hogwarts' History, the Legend of the Chamber of Secrets. According to the tale, it was a secret room on the school built by Salazar Slytherin that only one of his heirs would be able to access, and it housed a monster which would do the heir's bidding. While the book said it was probably a legend since it never had been found, Lily knew that it probably was true, since all that she had read up on his ancestor said he was more than vain enough to do such thing.

After getting over the hype of having a secret room in an ancient castle all by herself she started to think about it. If it could only be opened by his heir, then the heir must have something unique to the family to open it, which most likely meant parseltongue. And a monster of Slytherin that the heir could command had to be a snake. Lily hoped it was a Basilisk. One of the first books Lily had bought in Diagon Alley had been one in magical snakes. After finding about the Basilisk she knew she needed to see one. If Salazar had a familiar, it would have been a snake, and a Basilisk would have been the ultimate display of power of the House of the Snake.

And so, she spent her time wondering the castle with a different face, hissing at anything that remotely resembled a snake when people weren't looking.

* * *

Time went by and Lily was getting restless. Between the idiots of her House, the idiots of the staff, and the idiots of the other Houses, she was nearing her limits. It seemed that Potter had learnt that there was a muggleborn on Slytherin and he had made her his pet project. He had approached her one day on the library and the result had been embarrassing.

"Excuse me, Lily is it?" Lily lifted her sight out of her books to see who it was that was disturbing her study time. She had finally managed to have one of her study periods coincide with Luna's and she was ready to rain death on whoever bothered her, especially after seeing how the idiots in Ravenclaw hadn't stopped to bother Luna even after they had an accident and fell down the stairs. For the House of the Wise they were pretty daft. And so, when she saw Potter's smirk between Weasley –the male, even stupider one- and Granger –the girl with such low self-esteem that she was willing to do all of Potter's and Weasley's work just to have someone call her friend- she was ready to blow a fuse.

"Lily Hyde, yes, what do you want, Potter?" She asked.

"No need to be on edge, Lily, we're Gryffindors, we're here to help." He said, to which Lily snorted and Luna had to hide behind her books to hold her laughter. "I know you've had problems, I guess no one explained to you how Slytherin House is and you got sorted there. It's a nest of bigots and Death-Eaters in training, so obviously they're going to take offense to a muggleborn being sorted there. But you don't have to worry, we can protect you from them, they know better than to mess with me." He said proudly.

Lily had to take a deep breath before answering.

"Potter. I know you're trying to help, or more likely you're trying to look good by helping, but truly, it is not needed. The standards of Slytherin House have clearly gone down over the centuries, because as much as my housemates are trying, so far this conversation has bothered my studies more than anything those idiots have tried. Most are too stupid to get me, and the rest know better than to try." She said, going back to her books.

"But you're just a first year, how do you expect to be able to hold back the older Slytherins?" Granger interceded.

"Yeah, they must have gone easy on you, but they will get nastier, the slimy snakes will get you eventually." Weasley said with hatred in his face.

"For the last time, snakes are not slimy, frogs are. And if they get rowdier I'll just break a few legs, no need to worry about anything, my room is warded anyways." She said with finality.

"Warded? I thought you were muggleborn" Said Granger.

"What makes you think that?" Intervened Luna from behind her book.

"Didn't you grow up in the muggle world?" Asked Potter.

"Yes, which means that I'm either muggleborn or I come from a wizarding family which mistook me for a Squib." Lily said with venom.

"But Hyde is not a pureblood name." Said Weasley.

"She never said the family had to be pureblood, though they are more prone to abandoning squibs." Said Luna.

"And Lily Hyde is not my real name, is the name the people of the orphanage gave me." Lily offered, shrugging.

"So how come you know so much magic already?" Asked Granger with suspicion.

"I learn fast. The Hat wouldn't have put me in Slytherin if I didn't know how to handle myself." Lily answered. "Do you have anything else to say to me or…?"

"Let's go guys, it's obvious she doesn't want our help. She will come back begging sooner or later." Potter said turning back, to which Luna laughed out loud, earning a sush from Madam Pince.

"I told you it was a waste of time. The Hat screamed Slytherin in under a second, I still say she's the bastard child of a Death Eater." The voice of Weasley was heard at a distance. "No wonder Ginny hates her."

The encounter with Potter had been irritating, as word had somehow reached her House, and Draco Malfoy, better known to her as Barbie Jr., had confronted her, taunting her for "mingling with people of her station, mudbloods and blood traitors". Apparently Malfoy didn't believe her when she called Potter a self-important ass, or maybe he took affront to her saying he was more of the same. Anyways, it ended with Malfoy and his goons staking the Common Room's entrance waiting for her. As always, her metamorphmagus abilities came in handy, and she was very amused when Malfoy gave up and entered the Common Room, only to find her sitting in a chair. He lost it when she winked and drew his wand, but a quick wandless tripping charm fixed it; Malfoy lost his footing and hit his head with the corner of a table, hard enough to draw blood, and his wand went rolling across the ground. A notice-me-not charm over it and the refusal of any older student to summon it after he made an ass out of himself ensured that he spent the rest of the evening looking for it. The next day's breakfast was quite amusing, every time she winked at Malfoy he seemed about to have an aneurysm out of pure rage.

* * *

Now that she had had some time to settle in she had started to pay more attention to the people of the castle. Her status as a "muggleborn" Slytherin made her invisible to the other students, except for the occasional Slytherin who tried to curse her, but she could deal with them easily enough. Her metamorphmagus powers were quite useful, she just turned into an average-looking girl and most everyone ignored her. This made listening in and observing people so much easier.

She had readily identified the top Slytherin as Anabelle Urquhart, a sixth year witch which was the hand behind Marcus Flint. She had yet to identify who was pulling Malfoy strings, but she had her suspicions it was a second year by the name Blaise Zabini. He seemed too unsuspicious not to have some dirt.

Observing the professors had yielded a curious result. It appeared that Lily Potter was not part of the perfect family she had readily shown in public. She was harsh, ironic and very bitter. Lily had even caught the professor smoking on the Astronomy tower, with a sneer on her face that would make Snape proud. They were actually quite similar in several aspects.

It seemed not all that glitters is gold, but Lily could hardly blame her Charms Professor. If Potter Sr. was anything like his son in attitude her life must be continuous pain. The prat had taken her refusal of him "saving her from the slimy Slytherins" as a personal insult, and had jumped in Weasley's bandwagon of considering her a "Death Eater in training. Because, of course, who wouldn't want to worship the Boy-Who-Lived that wasn't a Dark and Evil wizard.

What was even more intriguing was the strange tension that seemed to be between Mrs. Potter and the rest of the members of the staff. She only got along with Flitwick, and she was her usual rude self to the rest, except for Dumbledore and Snape. She seemed to despise Dumbledore, which was surprising since as far as Lily knew the Potters were some of Dumbledore's fiercest supporters, the icon of the "light" families. Her relationship with Snape was far more intriguing. She hadn't seen them say a word to each other, not even look at each other. They seemed to be happy ignoring each other's existence, but as to why, she could only guess.

At first she had attributed this tension to Snape's animosity towards Potter Jr. He seemed to really have it out for the kid, and from what she had heard of the confrontations, it was quite obvious that Snape had serious beef with Potter Sr. and was taking it out on the boy. Quite petty, she thought, but that's life. However, this strange situation between the two professors didn't seem to have anything to do with Potter Jr. These two probably had their own history, but that would have to wait. She had more important things to do.


	3. Chapter 3: The Children of Salazar

**A Place to Call Home**

 **Book One: The Snake's Lair**

* * *

 **Chapter Three: The Children of Salazar**

"Lily,how's the plan going?"

It was now late October and Lily and Jormy were starting to make plans on how to take control of Slytherin House. The first weeks in Hogwarts and the Slytherin's treatment of her had woken up memories best left buried. She refused to be pushed around, especially by the likes of Malfoy, she had to be the one on top, it was the only way to ensure safety. Lily's ambitions ran much further, but she had to take one step at a time. Jormy was pissed that he still had to keep to the room. He said he was entitled to prance around wherever he wanted in the House of the Snake, but Lily thought it was just an excuse for biting a couple of her housemates. Lily was sure the primary reason he was so enthused in her taking over Slytherin was so he could bask in the Common Room's hearth's glow.

"Quite well, Luna likes me a lot, and she is kind of indebted to me since I cursed the crap out of some bints in Ravenclaw that were bullying her. She deduced it was me and is trying to make up for it."

"From what you tell me I like the kid, she has some really weird kind of irony with those fantastic creatures, but what's her use?" He asked.

"Her dad owns the Quibbler, which is a satirical newspaper."

"From what you tell me, most of these people don't even know what satire means. What's the point?"

"You're not wrong, but it also turns out that the Quibbler is the only privately-owned newspaper in the country. Apparently during the last war the ministry appropriated the Daily Prophet and Wizarding Wireless and bought out all other news media, except for the Quibbler since no one read it. There's still Witch Weekly and all the academical journals like Transfiguration Today, of course, but none report news."

"That's brilliant, Lily. A newspaper would be invaluable."

"Of course it's brilliant, who do you think you're talking to?" She said smugly.

"It would be more impressive if you actually approached the girl due to her connections instead of finding out after the fact." The snake did his best impression of a smirk.

"… You're a jerk." She pouted.

"Maybe, but I'm not wrong. Now, what about the rest of non-Slytherins?"

"Potter's stopped being a pest, he's mostly leaving me alone, but his pet Weasel is proclaiming to the four winds that I'm the second coming of Voldemort. He'd shit his pants if he knew I was a parselmouth."

"Interesting. Leaving Weasley's bowel movements aside, what else?"

"I don't have any contacts amongst the Puffs, they're too passive to be of any value. However, as I know I should have people everywhere, I've got my eyes on one Zacharias Smith. The guy is as arrogant as Malfoy, apparently his family are direct descendants from Helga Hufflepuff, which is the only reason he's in that House since he's a textbook example of a social climber. He'll be easy to control once I've got control over Slytherin."

"What about Ravenclaw?"

"They're true neutrals, so I don't see any angles yet, but I admittedly know few people there, they're mostly antisocial. I've got Luna on the inside, which is something, I guess."

"Allright, good enough. What about Slytherin?"

"Malfoy and the sixth years are still bitching around. The seventh year prefects have their eyes on me since the first time I entered the common room after the sixth years had changed the password." She chuckled. "As if you could keep a parselmouth out of here."

"That's great news, they'll be the first ready for a shift of power. What about the lower years?"

"The Carrows know better than to cross me, and the Greengrasses are neutral on the whole blood issue, so Astoria is mostly ignoring me. The first year boys are completely irrelevant. As for the second years, besides Malfoy and his goons I seem to have the attention of Blaise Zabini. From what I've seen the guy's a true Slytherin, he knows I'm more than the eye shows, but he seems to be waiting for me to make a move. He's probably the one controlling Malfoy. I've noticed that one of Malfoy's goons, Crabbe, is not what he looks like. Unlike Goyle he only appears stupid, but I've got the feeling he's actually quite capable. I don't like it at all, he gives me the creeps for some reason, I'm staying away from him. For the girls, Parkinson is a gold-digger, Greengrass and Davis keep to themselves and Bullstrode will follow whoever's got the best hand. Nott is a non-factor, the guy's a textbook Ravenclaw, he only cares about his books."

"Nice analysis Lily. If all goes as planned, I think you should seize control somewhere around January, after the break. If you did it before the break it would give their parents a lot of time to set a course of action for them. Keep them on their toes." He hissed

"Sounds good, Jormy. Now, I've got to go, tomorrow I have Potions with the Dorks first thing and I'm looking forward to seeing Snape bully the crap out of them."

"Good night, Lily."

* * *

"Oh, hi Luna." She said, sitting in their table at the library.

"Hi, Lily." Luna answered in her typical aloof tone. She was doing an essay on transfiguration. "How come you weren't at Transfiguration today? It isn't the same without you there, I love to see your housemate's faces when McGee gives you points instead of them ."

"Oh, Snape gave some speech, apparently someone blew up the Weasley twins' kneecaps with a bone breaker. They claim it was a first-year Slytherin girl, but there is no first year that matches their description or can cast a bone breaker, so he just warned us." Lily explained.

"I can think of someone who has a liking for bone-breakers. What did the idiots do that pissed you off so much?"

"They tried to hex me. At the moment I was wearing a glamour, so it's impossible they could possibly have any reason since it's the first time they saw that face. They hexed me because I was a Slytherin, and clearly any Slytherin eats babies and kills puppies, even an eleven year old girl that has only been there for two months." She snarled.

"The Weasleys are as bigoted as the Malfoys, just on the other end of the spectrum. It doesn't surprise me at all." Said Luna with a sniff.

"Yeah I know. Anyways, did you bother Potter in my absence? It would make up for having to listen to the bat for over an hour."

"Mother or child?" Luna asked.

"Either or." Lily answered with a smirk.

"Both, actually. I commented on the unusual amount of nargles around her, and asked if that was the reason his son wouldn't even look at her, fear of infection. I've got myself a detention with Filch." She said with a perfectly innocent face.

"Damn, Luna, you're quite brutal." She smiled. "I'm going to invite you to pudding, let's go to the kitchens." Lily said, getting up.

"Yay, pudding." Luna said. "Anyways, why do you disliked her so much? The wrackspurts refuse to tell me. Not that I mind, she is quite harsh."

"Petty revenge. I just dislike happy families, and Potter in particular." There was no point in mentioning that Potter Jr. was most likely the reason she was an orphan, she didn't think much of Lord Voldemort's paternal instincts, but it had to beat the orphanage. "What did you do to our glorious saviour?" She asked as they were arriving to the kitchens, where the elves were delighted to serve. She was really glad she had spent so much time exploring the castle, even if the snake portraits refused to tell her about the chamber.

"Oh, he heard about what I said to his mother and confronted me. I told him that it was not his fault that his mother couldn't stand the sight of him, it was just the humming wandilocks he had around all the time." She said between mouthfuls of pudding.

"I swear you make up those creatures on the go." Lily commented.

"I will neither confirm nor deny it." Luna said.

"Anyways, what did they do about it?"

"Weasley almost hexed me, but Potter just sneered at me. He almost lost it when I said he looked remarkably like Snape, Granger had to hold him back." She shrugged.

Lily couldn't hold back her laughter.

"Now that you say it, I don't think I've ever thought about why Snape hates Potter so, besides the obvious petty grudge to his father, I mean. There's got to be something juicier behind it, I'll have to keep a look on him." She said, starting her machinations.

"As long as there's pudding, count me in." Luna said with a smile.

* * *

"Oh, we're all here, good, good." Said Dumbledore. It was the middle of October, which meant it was time for the midterm staff meeting. "Let's start, shall we? Why don't we talk about our seventh years and make our way down?"

"The Head Boy and Girl are adequate and complying with their responsibilities, as are the seventh year Gryffindor prefects." Commented McGonagall.

"What about the rest of the prefects, are they doing a good job?" He said.

Nods from the other three Heads were his answer, and he moved to the next question.

"Alright then, let's go to the sixth years." He said jovially.

Flitwick scoffed. Of course he wouldn't care about how the students dealt with the NEWT study load, or their concerns about future career paths. It's not like Dumbledore had cared about the students for a long time, more so now that Potter attended. And of course, the Deputy wouldn't say anything about it, McGonagall was firmly in Dumbledore's purse.

The questions and answers were quite insipid, as was to be expected, until they reached the year Dumbledore was interested in.

"What about the second years?"

"My lions are keeping their grades more or less at the same level than last year." McGonagall said. "Ms. Granger is still top of her class, the girl is brilliant."

Snape scoffed. Of course she would say they were at the same level and see nothing wrong with it. Her muggle-raised students should have seen an increase in grades now that they had gotten used to Hogwarts. But of course, the only muggleborn Minerva cared about was that insufferable Granger. The one who merely vomited the contents of her textbook on a meter long piece of parchment. He couldn't care any less who passed or failed his class as long as no one died in an explosion, but for all his colleagues cared, they didn't seem to understand the difference between knowing the answer and understanding it. Nor did they seem to value capacity of synthesis in an essay, as he was the only one who didn't gave Granger an O for her mile-long essays straight from the book. All the same except for her.

"I see, good to know Ms. Granger is on her path to be the brightest witch of her generation. She might very well be your successor, Lily" Dumbledore said.

Lily Potter snorted.

"Please. The girl merely has a good memory and too much study time on her hands. She doesn't know the difference between knowing and understanding, she just reads whatever she finds on a book and recites it like a recording. She also believes everything written as law without cross-referencing or testing it. Kid will go as far as a desk job, but she's completely unsuited for research." She huffed.

"Come on now Lily, it's no time for envy, she's only twelve after all." Dumbledore said. Lily seemed ready to bust a vein, but kept quiet. "What about Mr. Potter?"

"Same old, the kid is cocky and arrogant, and doesn't put any effort on his work." Said Sprout. "No offense, Lily."

"None taken." She answered with a shrug.

"No need to be so harsh, Pomona, boys will be boys." Dumbledore said with twinkly eyes. "Filius, Minerva?"

"His work and work ethic are mediocre." Flitwick answered without going into details.

"He's good at transfiguration, reminds me of his father." McGonagall said with a smile which drew twin sneers from Lily and Snape, who continued ignoring each other. Dumbledore skipped both and asked the Defence teacher.

"What about you, Gilderoy, what do you think of young Harry?" He asked.

"He's a great kid, I'm teaching him what he needs to be a hero of the people, of course, and I'm helping him dealing with the heavy burden that is being famous. But worry not, for I'm leading the lad through his problems and I see a bright future ahead of him." The man-peacock said with a dramatic flair, ending in a blinding smile that had to be charmed.

"Thank you Gilderoy, now what about the first years?"

"I've had a problem with one of our first years, Headmaster, Ginny Weasley." Started Lockhart.

"How so? She's a sweet girl from a loving family." Came McGonagall to the defence of her lion.

"In our first class I passed a test, and she used her answers to try and ridicule me. But don't worry, I already dealt with the situation and the girl seems quite subsided on my classes now, she has learnt the error of her ways." He said, nodding fervently.

"I've seen her crying a couple of times, Gilderoy, perhaps you should have been softer on her." McGonagall said with fury on her eyes.

"Er… I assure you, it must be unrelated. I'm, before everything, a gentleman, and I try to protect the feelings of every lady that-"

"Whatever, any student worthy of notice?" Interrupted Lily.

"Why, yes, Lily, dear." Lockhart said with his best smile, which crumbled at the looks that Lily sent him. "Erm… Right. Ms. Hyde is quite a brilliant child, she resolved a situation on her first day."

"Oh yes, our muggleborn Slytherin. How is she adapting to her House, Severus? I know for a fact that some of them might be… opposed to having a muggleborn on their midst." Dumbledore interjected.

"Ms. Hyde grew up in an orphanage without knowing her parents, so it is possible she is not a muggleborn. Ms. Hyde is in excellent condition and has not been harassed in any way." He said.

"Come on Severus, you can't possibly believe that a muggle-raised wouldn't be hexed in your House." Scoffed McGonagall. "I'm sure Mr. Malfoy would be first in line to 'defend the Honor of the House' or some such idiocy."

"If you're going to publicly accuse one of my students of unruly behaviour, Minerva, I suggest you present proof first." Snape said icily. "As for Ms. Hyde, if she's been the object of any harassment she has no doubt dealt with it herself in a swift manner." He said, smirking. He had seen how the muggle-raised girl had completely avoided all conflict without lifting a finger, it was driving his godson mad. "She is also one of the few pre-NEWT students who might be able to brew decently."

The others raised their eyebrows at the compliment, traduced from Snape-speech that meant that the kid was looking forwards to an Outstanding on her Potions NEWT. Not unseen on a muggle-raised student, as Lily was proof of, but quite rare.

"She is indeed a very bright girl, top of her class along with my own Ms. Lovegood." Said Flitwick proudly. "They seem to get along quite nicely."

After the meeting was done Dumbledore retired to his study, mulling over the conversation. He would have to keep an eye on Ms. Hyde. After all, he was quite familiar with the fate of another student who had also been a brilliant muggle-raised Slytherin.

* * *

"So, Luna, Professor Potter seems to dislike McGonagall and Dumbledore a whole lot, especially Dumbledore."

"Yes. It seems to be personal by the looks he sends him. Her dislike for McGonagall is probably because she's Dumbledore's right hand." Luna answered, to which Lily nodded. "I've seen her send him death glares every time he looks toward the Gryffindor table, so I think it has something to do with the Git-Who-Lived."

"It's quite possible. But I wonder, why does she completely ignore Snape? She's not friendly or hostile with him, they just outright ignore each other. And Snape doesn't seem to like Dumbledore either." Lily added.

"He doesn't like anyone." Luna smirked.

"I mean more than usual." She specified, amused.

"It might be. Maybe they have a past, could you imagine? Lily was madly in love with Snape's giant nose and his endearing lack of hygiene, but Snape only had eyes for the Dumb-Old-Dork with the twinkling eyes, and she had to settle for that simpleton Potter." Luna said with a look of excitement and madness.

"Congratulations Luna. You're the first person to manage to make me lose my appetite. I truly did not think there was anything more disgusting than flobberworm entrails, but Snape doing the nasty with Twinkles takes the cup. I'm going to need a Mind Healer for the mental scarring." She said between shudders.

"Please, you know you love me." Luna said with a smirk.

"Maybe, but just for this I won't give you any more pudding." Lily deadpanned.

"Not fair!" Luna pouted.

As they laughed together they made her way towards the Halloween Feast which, while brutally raping any sanctity that the date could have according to the Old Ways, did have some incredibly looking food. She never was one to care for religious sensitivities anyways, but smirked at the thought of Malfoy. He would be so outraged; he was a stickler for traditions, as even for a pureblood heir. Seeing the Headmaster celebrating a holiday from a culture which had killed countless wizarding children instead of one of the most sacred magical holidays just so the muggleborns were comfortable would surely give him a stomach ulcer of pure hatred. Lily smiled at the thought as she sat at her table.

* * *

"You'll be next mudbloods!" Yelled Malfoy.

"What's the meaning of this?!" Asked McGonagall.

McGonagall made her way to the front of the group and instantly shut up, her gaze stuck on the wall. Lily followed and after a couple of well placed elbows finally reached the object of everyone's attention. Her eyes were widened beyond belief as she took in the flooded floor, the frozen cat and the dripping blood smeared on the rock.

"We didn't do it professor!" Yelled Potter.

Lily was too stunned to even respond to that. She could not take her eyes from the writing in the wall. 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware'. She breathed deeply and clamped her Occlumency shields down. She was close to mastering control of her emotions, and had noticed an increase in clarity when she was not as emotional as usual.

'All right, Lily, check facts' She thought.

'First: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, so there might be a Basilisk roaming the castle.'

'Second: There is another heir of Slytherin in school, and he seems interested in using the Basilisk to kill mudbloods'

'Third: As far as everyone knows, I'm not only a muggleborn, but I'm staining Slytherin's house, which makes me target #1'

Lily clamped down on the fear that was trying to rise to the front of her mind and kept staring at the writing.

'Fuck me.'

When Lily reached the common room she ignored the taunts and the laughs, she ignored the whispers and the glances, and simply set for her room. As she entered, she barricaded the door with the strongest, nastiest spells she knew and sat in the small space between her bed and nightstand, holding her legs to her chest. Jormy instantly noticed something was wrong and took no time in wrapping his coils around the child.

"What's wrong, Lily?" He hissed.

"Change of plans Jormy. We're not taking over the house anytime soon." She said and hugged the huge snake close to her.

After calming down for a while she had explained everything that had happened. Jormy agreed with her on the matter of Slytherin House, it wasn't time to call attention to her, a Basilisk was indeed a fearsome creature. She had to find out who this heir was without the heir discovering her. If he found out he might take her out just to be uncontested. Assuming there was a Basilisk indeed, approaching it was a no-go, as control over it might be first-come first-served, meaning it would attack her on orders of the other heir, and even then she had yet to find the Chamber. She needed to investigate further before committing to any risky move.

"Allright Jormy, let's think. The heir must be an actual heir, that is, a parselmouth, for him to open the chamber, so that means he's descended from Slytherin. The only one we know descended from Slytherin is the Dark Lord, and me, of course." She started.

"So that means that whoever the heir is, he's either a relative of yours, or somehow the Dark Lord has come back to life in one form or another." Jormy replied

"Unlikely, I figure he would have better things to do if he was back. Though it could be him indirectly. He's the only heir of Slytherin that we know of so it's a starting point."

The snake nodded.

"Well, then you can start by researching him in the library. He must have attended Hogwarts at some point, so maybe we can find something in the yearbooks."

"That's a good point. He rose to power during the 70's, so if he attended Hogwarts he did so between the 20's and the 60' 's worth a shot."

"See? There is no reason to be afraid, you'll figure it out, and when you find the bastard I'll sink my fangs in his neck." Jormy said with a smug voice.

"You always know how to calm me down Jormy." Lily hugged her snake.

"Yeah, it's quite easy child, I just have to threaten someone with a painful death." He snickered.

* * *

The following weeks passed by pretty quickly for Lily. Tensions were running high in the castle, and had she not broken the Weasley Twins' legs they would be "pranking" every Slytherin in sight. She had more trouble than ever sneaking around, but it didn't bother her as much as she spent most of her time in the library. She had managed to recruit Luna's help to search the yearbooks, but so far nothing had been found.

The most important happening of November was the aftermath of the first Quidditch game of the season, Slytherin-Gryffindor. She didn't attend the game, but she had heard that a rogue bludger had tried to kill Potter, and then Lockhart had somehow managed to vanish all the bones in his arm. What she did see, however, was Potter's mother crying and hugging the boy, smothering him with affection. Even Potter Sr. busy as he was being an Auror and part of the Wizengamot, had been to the castle a mere hour after the fact. Lily had just mastered her Occlumency exercises on controlling emotions, but still could not smother the envy and grief that seeing that ponce showered with affection she lacked brought her.

This event had significant fallout, as apparently Potter Sr. had raised a stink big enough for the ministry to approve placing a couple of aurors in the castle so as to prevent any further incident. Dumbledore said it was to prevent further attacks form the Heir, as a first year Gryffindor had been found petrified the day after the match, but anyone with a bit of wit knew that the higher ups didn't give a damn about muggleborn children. What was interesting is that one of the aurors was the Head Auror himself, Lord Sirius Black. While he probably had better things to do, it was obvious that the ministry would kneel before Potter's demands where the Golden Boy's safety was concerned. Lily had sneaked a couple of looks at the patriarch of her family and she had to say she was impressed.

Sirius Black looked the part of the pureblood Lord in posture, expression and presence. He was intimidating and had an aura that inspired respect. However, instead of having the typical high-end robes most purebloods would wear, or even the standard Auror robes, he wore a simple but sturdy dragonhide vest over sporty muggle clothes. It seemed like a wardrobe designed for combat instead of ceremony, and both it and Black's expression made Lily sure that this man had fought in the frontline in the last war.

Over the next weeks, she had been able to observe the man further, and how he interacted with the staff. The first thing she noticed was that the man had a lot of hate to give around. She had seen him send looks of disgust to Potter Jr. and McGonagall, and straight up looks of loathing to Lily Potter and Dumbledore. As for Snape, he seemed to have the same deal with him that Mrs. Potter had, as they both ignored each other completely. Surprisingly, he was cordial enough with the rest of professors - except Lockhart, for obvious reasons.

At first Lily thought that this was due to his family's politics. It made sense for a Dark family to be at odds with the Potters and Dumbledore, but there was evidence that it was much more. When Black had first arrived at the castle, Potter Sr. was still around. Once they met face to face, Potter had looked with disgust at Black, but the look that Black sent back was one that would make a Dementor fear for his life. She had not seen such hatred ever before. Perhaps for the best, Black was able to restrain himself and walked away, but Lily remembered that face. She decided to look into it; after all, it would not do to be uninformed on the Lord Black being Lily a Black herself. It was about time to look into her family history anyways.

* * *

"What are you doing here?" Was said with disgust.

Lily didn't need to raise her head to know who that was.

"What do you want now Weasley? I thought you were allergic to books." She said to the redheaded boy who was, as usual, flanking Potter, same as Granger.

"That's not important, what are you reading about, eh? I'm sure it's Dark Magic."

"I'm actually reading on the mating habits of the Crumple-horned Snorkack." She said with a totally serious face.

Weasley seemed to be thinking about it, as he froze on the spot.

"What are you reading on anyways? It's not even close to the final exams, and you don't see many Slytherins here even then, and yet you're always here." Asked Granger.

"Of course you don't see many Slytherins here. Why read up on something when you can blackmail or torture the information out of a Ravenclaw?" She said with a deadpan. "For your information, Granger, most Slytherins keep to their dormitories when studying since it's more comfortable, quieter, and you don't have ruddy Gryffindors accusing you of Dark Magic every twenty minutes." Lily said exasperated. "Will you tell me what the hell do you want, since you obviously won't leave me alone otherwise?"

"What do you know about the Heir of Slytherin, Hyde?" Asked Potter before Granger could continue.

"What makes you think I know anything?"

"You're a Slytherin, you must know something." He said neutrally.

"Yeah, It's Malfoy, isn't it?" Interrupted Weasley.

Lily had to laugh at it.

"You really think that out of my entire House, the one to claim the name of the Heir of Slytherin would be that ponce? He's probably the least Slytherin-like of us!" Lily said, irritated.

"The hell do you mean, Malfoy is a slimy snake if I ever saw one." Potter said, and both Weasley and Granger nodded.

"Snakes. Are. Not. Slimy." Lily sighed and pulled a piece of parchment from her bag and started to write. After a while he handed the sheet to Weasley.

"Read that." Weasley looked dumbly at his friends. Potter shrugged, and the redhead started to read.

"Malfoy, you're just a slimy snake, and you look like a prat. My Dad says that when Dumbledore finally gets his way your whole family will go to Azkaban for being Death Eaters." He read.

"Does that sound anything like you?" Lily asked.

"Kind of. All of it is true, of course." Ron nodded.

"Very well. Let's change a couple of words, shall we?" Lily smiled. "We change Malfoy for Weasley, Dumbledore for the Dark Lord, a couple more… And finished." She started to read. "Weasley, you're just a stupid Gryffindork, and you look like a pauper. Father says that when the Dark Lord comes back your whole family will be killed for being blood traitors" She finished. "Sound like someone you know?" She paused at the lost look in Weasley's face.

"What this means, Weasley, if you can't understand simple words, is that you and Malfoy are very alike, just opposite sides of the same coin. And I consider you the perfect example of a Gryffindor, so you'll forgive me when I say that no, Malfoy would never qualify as a heir of Slytherin." She finished with a sly smile.

Potter was trying to hold back his laughter as Weasley grew redder and redder with each sentence, and he looked ready to explode, so Lily defused the situation by turning to face Granger.

"Granger, I know logic is not exactly your fort, but if you think about it for a minute you'll find that it's not one of the lower years. By proclaiming his presence to the school, the Heir is either a really stupid and self-important prat like Malfoy, or trying to divert attention from his real objective. In the first case, he would have wasted no time in proclaiming his heritage to the four winds and we'd all know who he is, so it's obvious that it's the second one. He's not interested in killing muggleborns, although he'll probably still do so to divert attention from his real goal." She explained. "I'm fairly certain that none of the lower years in all four houses is the heir, but I don't know everyone, so I could be wrong. I'd say it's probably an older year who recently discovered how to open the Chamber."

"As shocking as this might sound, Potter, Weasley, there's no reason why the heir is a Slytherin. He could have been ignorant of his heritage and have been sorted elsewhere." Lily continued. "Or I could be mistaken and it indeed is a lower year, in which case he might have been sorted elsewhere on purpose just to avoid suspicion. Then again, this is just speculation, we don't even know if the Chamber has been open at all, he only said so, but there was no proof. He could be attacking people on his own and blaming Slytherin." She smirked.

"So in short, you know nothing." Summarised Granger.

"Exactly." She smiled.

"And why didn't you say so? We could have avoided all this nonsense." Said Potter, while Weasley still looked enraged from her earlier comment and looked like he was trying to think of a retort.

"It's funnier this way." She winked at him. "So, who do you think it is?" She asked him.

"We thought it was Malfoy." Potter said. Lily snorted at the thought. "Well, the attack just coincided with Sirius Black coming to the castle, and everyone knows how Dark the Black family is, and Malfoy's mom's a Black, so we thought that it's Malfoy and Black is helping him."

Lily laughed yet again at the stupidity.

"So the Blacks are a Dark family. Would you say that all their members are evil, slimy Slytherins?" She asked mischievously.

"Of course!" Interrupted Ron, who jumped to the chance to reaffirm himself as completely opposite from Malfoy. "Everyone knows that anyone from that family is rotten, they all sided with You-Know-Who." Potter nodded along, while Granger looked unsure.

"Oh, that's interesting to know, Weasley. Do you say these things in front of your Grandmother? What about you, Potter?" She asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Potter asked narrowing his eyes.

"Well, considering Cedrella Weasley and Dorea Potter are both Blacks, I'd say they'd take offense." She smirked.

"My grandmother is not a filthy Black! Take that back!" Weasley yelled, which won him a sush from Madam Pince.

"It's public knowledge, you idiot. Here." She showed him one of the books she was reading, which contained a genealogy of the best known Wizarding Families. Potter and Weasley both paled when they saw that she was right.

"So this is what you've been reading about?" Asked Granger with suspicion.

"There are other things to read about than schoolwork, Granger." Lily smirked.

"Hey! It says here that they disinherited her, so she's only a Black in name, she's not like the rest of the family!" Said Weasley proudly.

"And if you bothered to look for two seconds longer, you'd realize that Sirius Black was also disinherited for being sorted in Gryffindor, and the only reason he's Lord Black is because everyone else died. For being so 'Dark and Evil' as you put it, in the last generation only two of the Blacks were Death Eaters, while another two were disinherited by consorting with blood-traitors. So it's more of a fifty-fifty kind of deal, Weasley, not that I'd expect you to understand that children can have different opinions that their parents, since you come from a family which is proud of having every single member in Gryffindor."

"And what the hell is wrong with that!"

"Too long to explain, I'd say ask Granger but I doubt she'd get it either." She paused. "Anyway, you've come here to figure out who the heir is and I'd say you're less certain now than before. So do you have any other theory you want me to dismantle or…?" She raised her eyebrow.

"Let's just leave." Said Potter, and finally left her alone.

She huffed and went back to the yearbooks. It looked like it would be a long while yet until she found what she was looking for.

* * *

"Duel club?" Asked Lily.

"Yes, I saw the announcement on the notice board at the common room." Answered Luna. "But don't get your hopes up. I asked Flitwick if he had anything to do with it since he was a duelist champion, and he said that he didn't organize it. Which means…"

"Lockhart." She sighed.

"Yep." Luna answered, popping the p.

"Ugh. Like the ponce needed any more attention. We're not going to learn anything from it, but it could be nice for some laughs."

"I don't doubt it, someone will hand Lockhart his ass. You need the fun, you've been cooped up in here even more than Granger."

"Creevey." She simply said.

"I know." Sighed Luna. Indeed, Lily was the perfect target for the next attack, and the petrification of Colin Creevey had proved that the Heir wasn't playing around, and that there was indeed a Basilisk in the castle. "We'll find something, don't worry Lily."

"I don't worry, worrying is pointless." And indeed she didn't, Lily was very glad she had taken the time to learn Occlumency. Her actual defenses against Legilimency were not quite there, but she wasn't applying herself as much as she should due to the Heir situation. It still came to her far faster than the book said it should, so she wasn't very worried. "Anyways, I'm going to practice a bit of defense for the Duel club. It will be fun to belittle the other Slytherins."

"Good idea, Lily." She smiled, going back to the yearbook. "Oh, look here!"

"What do you got?" Lily said excited, going over to Luna's side of the table.

"It's not about the heir, but it's very interesting. It's the 1968 graduating class." Luna said, pointing to the photo. "Look at the Gryffindors."

And indeed there was something interesting with the Gryffindors. In the middle of the picture were the Head Boy and Girl, James and Lily Potter (then Evans). What was worthy of mention, however, was the young man who had his arm draped around Potter's shoulders, Sirius Black. It seemed like they were the best of friends.

Not long after, Lily and Luna were looking at the yearbook for 1961. Indeed, Sirius Black and James Potter, along with two other Gryffindor boys seemed the best of friends. Something had to have happened for a friendship of seven years to break so hard, and it seemed it was Potter who was at fault.

"Oh god, Lily, look at this." Said Luna, who started to snicker violently.

"What is it?" She was merely passed the yearbook. In one of the photos, you could see two students, a girl and a boy. The boy was merely scowling, but a hint of a smirk could be seen at the corner of his mouth, while the girl was in tears of laughter and had the boy in a one-armed hug. It would be a seemingly normal picture if it wasn't for the fact that the boy and girl were a Slytherin and Gryffindor, respectively. And even more disconcerting were the names below: Severus Snape and Lily Evans.

"God, it's like he was born looking like a bat." Luna gasped between fits of laughters.

Lily however was not as interested in laughing at Snape. It seemed these two had also been the best of friends and something drove them apart, but the yearbook was not enough to figure out what exactly had gone on.

Lily sighed and went back to her search of the Heir. The mysteries piled one over the other and she had so little time.


End file.
